


benign

by OpheliaMarina



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/F, First Avenger Timeline, femmeslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 03:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7250077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaMarina/pseuds/OpheliaMarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky meets little Stevie Rogers when she's six and Stevie's seven, and she's not much of a white knight and Stevie's not much of a princess. Mostly they're both just trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	benign

Bucky meets Stevie when she’s six and Stevie’s seven, but the reason they even meet is because she figures Stevie’s got to be two years her junior, easy, and needs a pal, at least for the moment, to help her clean off.

She’d be pretty sour-faced for a four-year-old, though. When Bucky crouches down next to her, underneath the base of a big tree at the edge of the schoolyard, she’s scowling at some blood on the back of her hand.

“Hey there,” Buck says, more to her hand than to her. “You all right?”

That only deepens the scowl in the small face, and big blue eyes flick up towards her distrustfully before she lifts her chin and rubs the bottom of her palm against it, streaking blood all over herself. “Whaddya want.” 

She has gold hair, real thin, the kind Buck’s ma always coos over on babies. Pale, too, no freckles, she could almost be a doll if it weren’t for all the staining on her face. “Nothin’. Well, you look in pretty bad shape. Just came to check on you.”

That gets her a second glance, a more lingering one, before the girl goes back to licking at her wounds. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

Pretty tough for someone so small. Bucky can’t help smiling. She goes fishing for a handkerchief in her pockets. “What’s your name?”

A pause, then reluctantly, “Stevie.”

Cute. And like Bucky, kinda, hard names for girls. “How’d you get the blood on you?”

She finds the handkerchief, and Stevie forcibly turns her face away from it. “I get nosebleeds sometimes.”

So Bucky puts it in her hands instead of against her face. Stevie looks at her suspiciously, then starts methodically cleaning herself up. “Yeah, okay. How’d you get the blood on you?”

Stevie doesn’t look like anything Buck ever thought a girl could look like, mouth open and eyes wide as she rubs blood all over then off her face, like Ma doing her makeup for the day. She looks like a picture, instead of a person. The way she’s looking at Bucky kind of makes her feel like a pest, but it’s not like she can get rid of her now. She’s too charmed. “... Hamm boys took my lunch money. Tried to get it back.”

Hamm boys. Of course. Everyone’s had in their runs with them and their daddy too, but. “You picked a fight with them for it?”

Stevie tilts her head back, swallows, and hands Bucky a bloodied kerchief back. “Ain’t right to steal,” she says petulantly. 

That’s when Bucky figures she’ll probably love Stevie whatshername forever. 

She stands up, and brushes herself off. “Stay here,” she says. “I’m gonna talk to the Hamms.”

That just gets little Stevie looking downright murderous. She springs to her feet, says, “It’s my fight, you-” and starts coughing.

Bucky waits for her to finish, then says, “Yeah, and you lost. Now it’s my turn. Be right back.”

And she is. With two nickels in hand, no less. Stevie just glares at her. “What’d you do?”

“Asked ‘em nicely,” Bucky says, and dumps the nickels into her thin, cold hand. “Threatened to tell their mamas. How ‘bout this, Stevie- you pick fights all you want, but if you lose, then I get at ‘em. Same goes for me with you, huh?”

Stevie blinks at her, then narrows her eyes and rubs at her nose. It’s turning pink. “What’s your name?”

“Bucky,” she says proudly. “For my middle name, not because of my teeth.”

Steve’s face softens, a little. She has nice cheeks, ‘rosy’ or whatever it is. “That’s a boy’s name.”

“So’s Stevie,” Buck says. “Guess it’s just ‘cause we’re so tough.”

She smiles, at last, and Bucky’s done for. “Yeah,” Stevie Rogers says, and jams her nickels safe into her pockets. “Maybe.”

\---

They get bigger. At least, Bucky gets bigger, her hands and her chest and her hair. Stevie doesn’t. She just gets longer, and sicker. 

“You’re real pretty, Stevie,” Bucky drawls, lying on her back. It’s the summertime, and she’s a foot or so away from Stevie’s ankles, just shy of her lap. They’re in the shade of a big tree again, but a different one this time. This one is oak, and it’s theirs. Bucky herself eighteen and gorgeous, and there’s a war on somewhere but it’s too hot to be troubled by just about anything right now. “Why don’t you ever go out dancing with me, huh? Break some hearts?”

That just earns her a skeptical look over Stevie’s sketchpad. It’s an old, beat up thing, resting in Stevie’s lap with its top flap a few inches from Bucky’s face. Her hair’s hanging in long hanks all around her face, over her nose, across her eyes. Her arm is pale and stick-thin as it moves, hands gliding over the page. “More likely to break some legs. Buck, boys don’t _like_ me.”

She wants to draw Stevie’s hair out of her face. She doesn’t, but she does picture it for a moment, Stevie with her hair pushed back, less limpid. “Sure, the ones who you punch in the nose don’t. But Stevie, you’re a _doll_. Guys would fight for you and not at you, if you gave ‘em the chance.”

“Don’t wanna,” Stevie says lightly, hand moving in a delicate circle around the page. “They’re rats. I’m not gonna be their dame.”

Bucky doesn’t really want to be their dame either, and she sure has hell doesn’t want Stevie to be. But she does want Stevie to step _out_ sometimes. “C’mon, Stevie. I’ve got a date Saturday, we can make it a double. Whaddya think?”

Stevie looks up at her, and smiles wryly with half of her mouth, still drawing. “I think you’re a fool,” she says, then she turns her wrist in one smooth, pretty motion, and the sketchbook is facing Bucky now. “Look, it’s you.”

And well. There she is. 

\---

Stevie’s mom dies, and Bucky is going to war. It’s just bad timing the way it works out. The only reason she’s going at all is because it’s what Stevie would do, if Stevie wasn’t so sick and small.

“I’m gonna be a nurse,” she says. “It ain’t the best work and it’ll be ugly, probably, but it’s for the war. It’s how I’ll be the most help.”

“The most help would be if we could fight,” Stevie says, picking at her nails and not meeting Buck’s eyes. “But yeah. Okay.” She snorts. “You’ve definitely spent enough time caring over me.”

“C’mon,” Bucky says, “don’t be like that.” But she can’t think of anything else worthwhile to say, so they taper off into silence.

Then Stevie looks at her sideways, and suddenly runs a hand through Bucky’s hair. Bucky startles, and does her best not to shiver.

“It’s long, Buck,” Stevie says critically. “And nice, but. You’ll want to cut it. I can do it.”

She’s right, but the idea of holding her head over the sink as Stevie’s hands card through her hair is daunting, say the least. “Thanks, darlin’, you don’t have to.”

Stevie just frowns at her, and her finger catches on a lock of dark curls as she draws her hand away. “I’m gonna,” she says. “You can do mine first, all right?”

So she cuts Stevie’s hair first, even though Stevie’s not going to war, even though there are some fights Stevie just can’t start, let alone win. She could take on the world if it would let her, Buck knows, but it won’t ever let her. So she gives Stevie a bob, fashionable like, makes sure it’ll keep out of her eyes, and is a little sad for all the gold lying on the floor after.

Then it’s her head in the sink. Stevie says, “Say when when it’s short enough.”

She doesn’t say when. After a good deal of long minutes, Stevie peers down at her, freshly shorn hair falling past her face. “You sure you want me to keep going?”

“Mm.”

“Well, hell, Buck. You’re gonna look like a boy.”

She doesn’t care. “Fine. Not like I got anyone to impress over there. Besides, don’t you think I could make one hell of a pretty boy?”

Stevie chuckles, says, “sure, Bucky,” and cuts off the rest of her hair. 

Later, Stevie runs her hand through it again. “Not to toot my own horn, but it looks good,” she says thoughtfully. “You don’t look as much like a fella as I thought you might.” She grins. “Prettier than ever, in fact. You’ll be able to jump hearts without any medical assistance, Barnes.”

“Can do that anyway,” Bucky says, but runs her own hand self-consciously through her hair. It’s far shorter than she’s used to, but hair grows back. And Stevie likes it. 

Stevie looks at her fondly for a moment, then her expression sombers. “Buck,” she says. “Will you do something for me?”

“Sure, darlin’, anything.”

“Learn to shoot a gun, while you’re there,” Stevie says. “Not to kill people. Just to stay safe. And to keep your girls safe, if you need it. Will you?”

Bucky’s never used a gun before. She’s never even really thought about it. Doesn’t use her fists much, even, except when Stevie needs them. “Sure, Stevie,” she says. “I’ll figure something out.”

\---

They sleep on the same mattress, because they could only afford the one, and they always sleep backs facing because Stevie complains she can’t sleep with anyone looking at her, she can feel Bucky’s eyes. Buck can’t blame her for that; she knows her own eyes are heavy.

Day before Bucky ships out, they start out like that, back to back. When she wakes, though, Stevie’s facing towards her, like she’s never done, one hand gripping the pillow near her face real tight. She looks so young when she sleeps, uncalloused and soft, hair fanning across her face. Her breathing is wheezy, but even.

Bucky’s gaze must be light this time, because she spends a couple of hours, at least, just looking at her, before Stevie wakes up. 

\---

She manages to learn to shoot a gun. 

Before that, though, she’s a nurse. A regular one, doing what she can. Mopping up blood, holding hands, stitching skin. She doesn’t know what’s worse, when the soldiers with holes in their torsos flirt with her, or when they just moan.

By far she’s not the most medically professional, but she gets a lot of commendation for not flinching in the face of the blood or the smell or the men. She smiles as pretty as she can, and thinks of Brooklyn and of Stevie, who’s probably half dead of asthma or allergies or of being a damn fool and picking fights with men four times her scrawny size. 

One of the men with a broken ankle really takes a shining to her, and that’s how she learns to fire a gun. They go into the woods, late at night, him on a crutch and her with a pistol, and he shows her how to aim, how to fire.

It goes off like a kid’s cracker except much harder, and it startles her so bad she nearly drops it. The fella she’s with laughs, and she fires it again, out of spite. It goes right into the heart of a far tree.

“Huh,” the guy says, like it’s nothing impressive. “Crack shot. Pretty good for a doll like you, huh?”

She could kill him. She thinks it, even, a little giddily. She has a gun, he has a crutch, and he’s not even afraid. She could kill him right now.

“Pretty good for a doll like me,” she agrees, and kisses him instead.

There are other fellas like him, and lots of types of guns. It isn’t the first time she’s called a doll, or the last time she’s called a crackshot.

\---

She’s back in Brooklyn for a day to see Howard Stark’s future fair, and the way she has to beat three big guys offa Stevie straightaway feels a lot like home. 

Stevie’s bleeding from the mouth, and her stockings are torn, and her hair’s all in her face again. She draws the back of her hand against her lips, and scowls at Bucky like she always does, and Bucky loves her just like she did when she was six. “I had ‘em on the ropes.”

It’s a struggle to roll her eyes when she’s smiling so much. “Yeah, I know you did. Tell me, Stevie, how d’you have such a knack for finding every fella in Brooklyn who’s looking to beat up a dame in broad daylight?”

“Not a dame, that’s how,” Stevie mumbles, and sniffs. She inspects the blood on her hand, then Bucky, just as critically. “Don’t you look proper.”

Sure she does. She’s in her pins and red because she likes how she looks in them, because she wants to show off. “And you look like a mess.”

Stevie frowns at her, and Bucky’s heart is about fit for bursting. She just grins at her, and slings an arm around her skinny neck. “C’mon. We’re going out.”

“Yeah?” Stevie says, fixing her skirt disinterestedly, tugging at the hole in her slip. “To where?”

Bucky feels whimsical with Stevie’s thin shoulders beneath her arm, bony and birdlike, intoxicated by youth and love. “The future,” she says, and when she says it with her own mouth it’s hard to be afraid of it. 

\---

But Stevie’s cross in a way Bucky can’t charm out of her. It’s not unlike her to ditch her half of the date and it’s not unlike her to turn up someplace stupid like outside registration, but the fact that it’s likely doesn’t make Bucky anything but more annoyed. 

“Holy shit, Stevie, you can’t really be thinking of being a nurse, you’d just make everyone in there sicker-”

Stevie glares, then casts her eyes down, and Bucky gapes.

“Good God. You’re not here to apply to _fight_ -”

There’s an old man looking over at them, like he has something he wants to say. Bucky glares at him, then shuffles Steve closer to her. “You’re stupid, Rogers, but you’re not _crazy_.”

“It ain’t about me, Buck,” Stevie says, voice tired like _she’s_ the one being stupid. “It’s just that I hate sitting around at home when there’s a war on, I don’t deserve to be at home when everyone else is-”

“There’re jobs, Steve,” Buck says, impatient, “jobs for the war that need to be done _here_ -”

“No, there aren’t! Jobs for girls? Jobs for girls like me? Wise up, Buck. I oughta be out there, I can fight, I can throw a punch as easy as any of them-”

“You think what they’re doing out there is _fighting_ \- like you do- in alleys-”

“No, what they’re doing out there is _dying_!” 

It’s a slap, and she means it as one. They glare at each other. Stevie softens first. “I hate being here and feeling useless, Buck. You understand?”

Bucky’s never been able to understand Stevie Rogers. Seventy pounds soaking wet with a fire inside her for what’s right, burning like someone put it there, like she’s meant to do something about it with a body that’s not meant to do much of anything. They look at each other a while longer. Then Bucky shrugs. “All right, Rogers. I’m not your ma.”

“You’re damn right,” Stevie says, but there’s crinkling in the corners of her eyes. “Can’t say you didn’t try to be, though.”

She’s wrong. Bucky could never ever be Stevie’s ma, who was a saint, and doesn’t plan on ever trying either. Still, she lets Steve have it. “Don’t do anything stupid till I get back, all right?”

“Takin’ all the stupid with you,” Stevie says, grinning, and Buck gets about five paces away from her before Stevie calls out, “You ever fire a gun, nurse?”

So she comes back, like always, wraps Stevie up in a hug that has her coming off her feet. Murmurs in her ear, “Yeah, little lady, I’ve fired a gun. Big ones _and_ little ones.”

“Good,” Stevie breathes, then, “you’re a jerk.”

Bucky kisses her temple, because no one’s watching except that peeping old man in the corner, and maybe they could be sisters, who knows. “You’re a punk. Take care of yourself, all right?”

Stevie nods, says “be careful,” all weary when Bucky pulls away, like she’s the one they oughta be worried about, between the two of them. Bucky just laughs.

“See ya, darlin’,” she says, and waves, and that’s the last time Bucky ever sees her girl.

\---

Fact is, Stevie’s knack for getting into trouble rubs off.

Not a few months later, their camp is stormed. Men are killed, there’s fire everywhere, the Germans are fucking _cheaters_. And the fact is, she’s scared.

She does the best she can to not be, though, huddling all the screaming nurses off to a faroff, slightly singed tent, and telling them to keep their heads down. Almost grabs the gun she had stashed in her apron and goes after a few Nazis herself, but little redhead Donna grabs her arm and looks up at her with big afraid eyes, and she doesn’t. 

The hell of it is, she almost makes it out. The men are all lined up and walking in lines, POWs already, and Bucky’s watching them all go and feeling like a coward when a little man turns, catches her eye, and stares.

Then says, “The women too.”

And she kills some of them. She has a gun in her apron and she kills some of those men, shoots them dead. It’s not enough. They all get carried away. 

\---

She thinks she’s gonna die on that metal cot, but she doesn’t. Feels worse than it, sometimes, but she doesn’t.

They do things to her, and half the time she doesn’t know what. The other half she doesn’t wanna know what. Half the time she’s closing her eyes and thinking of Brooklyn, and Stevie, and the other half of the time she’s so fucked over she really thinks she’s back there with her, at least for a bit, never long enough.

Asphalt and old mattresses and the squeak of bedsprings as she rolls, as Stevie adjusts next to her.

Smell of the sea. Stevie up to her knees and shivering at Coney Island. 

Taste of blood in her mouth, sight of Stevie’s blood on her lips and tongue, how she never smiles when she’s bloody, when she’s sick. How she smiles for Bucky when she least expects it, when she hasn’t earned it.

Stevie, killing herself over something she can’t control.

Stevie, back home.

“Bucky?”

Stevie.

“Bucky, it’s me! It’s me.”

Stevie, here.

But it’s not right.

It’s not right. This isn’t her girl. This is a woman. This is an Amazon.

She’s wearing Stevie’s face, sure, and her hair, and her voice. But the body’s wrong. She’s tall, strong. Bigger than Bucky, even, somehow. Wearing a _uniform_ , muscles jammed tightly underneath it, hair all pinned up like she’s someone official. Leaning over Bucky like she’s Prince Charming and Bucky’s Snow White.

Stevie, coming to save her. Stevie, healthy and whole, living her life the way she wanted it. 

Bucky’s dead, probably. 

“Stevie?” she croaks, and Stevie’s whole face lights up like the sun. She’s golden.

Pulling Bucky into an upright position, she reaches for her face and touches it gently, before gently clasping her neck. She makes an aborted gesture like she wants to embrace her, then falters. Bucky just gapes. Stevie can’t be big and strong and in the war and _nervous_ now, that’s her job, everything’s mixed up.

“I thought you were dead,” Stevie says, her voice cracking, and this ain’t real, it can’t be.

“I thought you were smaller,” Buck says, breathless.

And Stevie laughs like she’s gonna cry, and hugs Bucky with arms that are so broad and so capable that Bucky nearly passes out in them. Does, in fact, for a second.

“Come on,” Stevie mutters, and practically sweeps her off her feet before setting her down, slinging Bucky’s arm over her shoulder like Buck’s done for her a thousand times. “We gotta get you outta here.”

Bucky mumbles, “When’d you get so big, Rogers?” and Stevie just laughs, and starts to haul ass. 

\---

They’re calling Stevie Captain America.

There’s a man with an all red face, Howard Stark gave Stevie a magical potion that can turn a sickly four-eleven twentysomething girl into a brick shithouse of sinew and muscle and shining blonde hair, and they’re calling Stevie _Captain America_.

It’s enough to make a girl liable to faint twice. She holds it together best she can, under the circumstances. She keeps asking Stevie how, why, when, because it’s better than Stevie fussing over her. Stevie worrying over Bucky feels all sorts of mixed-up and wrong and brings up a bunch of things to mind she doesn’t wanna think about. 

“How come they let you be it?” Bucky ends up gasping, through half a mouth of water. Stevie’s lent her her jacket, and she feels doted on with it over her shoulders, like it’s high school all over again, except dirtier and stranger. “You’re a _gal_ , Stevie, case they hadn’t noticed.”

“They noticed,” Stevie says dryly. “And a bunch of ‘em didn’t like it. Most of ‘em. But the scientist took a shining to me, said with my condition being as it was- sick as a dog, small, young, a ‘female’ so weaker than fellas, y’know- I’d be the perfect test subject. And that’s all I was s’posed to be, the test subject. But things went wrong, now I’m it. And we’re making do.”

“Looks like you’re making more than do,” Bucky says incredulously, hugging the jacket around herself. “Holy smokes. Look at you, Stevie, you look like you could throw me cross the field. Look like you could throw a _car_ cross the field.”

The expression on Stevie’s face is halfway between bashful and smug, and Bucky wants to live in it. “Can,” she says. “Have.”

“No sir.”

“It’s true. Ask anybody. You know what? Ask Agent Carter. You’ll like Agent Carter, Buck, you’ll like her a hell of a lot. She’s a real tough lady, got more gumption than half the men fighting out here.”

Bucky rolls her eyes, and stands up when the rolling cart stops and they all climb out. Stevie singlehandedly rescued tons of men, along with her, from the camp- one of them helps her down from the car, and she’s never felt more like a dame. She makes sure to walk on her own, holds tight to the gun she’s gotten her hands on, even when the men give her looks. She sticks closer to Stevie, marches along with her. “Agent Carter’s a she? Hell, Stevie, all these gals who’ve gotten into the war since I’ve been gone. _I_ oughta be fighting with you instead of shoring up in a tent.”

At that, Stevie gives her a long, hard look, and they’re marching like men so Buck doesn’t break stride. She might shiver a little though, under her jacket. Stevie’s eyes are the same, at least, still big in a broader face, and blue. 

“You will,” she says, and then the cheering starts.

Cheering, and clapping, and a few sour looks from the men in Stevie’s direction. They look like men that would’ve hated a girl like Stevie small and hate her even more big. Bucky does her best to glare right back at them. 

Little Stevie, her Stevie. The allies’ savior, America’s savior. 

Not-

“Captain Rogers!”

Stevie’s whole face blossoms. It’s not like anything Bucky’s ever seen. It just about stops her heart. “Agent Carter.”

Bucky turns on a dime, clutching her gun to her chest, and _oh_.

This is Agent Carter.

She doesn’t so much as spare Bucky a glance, which gives Bucky leeway to openly stare. She’s gorgeous, and it’s terrible. The way she and Stevie are staring at each other is even worse.

So- 

So it’s never been about liking fellas, or not liking them, or liking gals or not, with Stevie. It’s just been about not liking Bucky. In her whole life, Bucky cannot think of one instant where Stevie has looked at anyone the way she is looking at Miss Agent Carter. 

But that’s fine then. That’s fine. She’s never seen Stevie look this happy before either. This healthy. This good.

“Hey!” she says, a little desperate, once Agent Carter’s red mouth has curled shut in a smile. Bucky isn’t an agent or accented or muscled or even brave, but she does have a loud voice. “Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

A roar goes up, and Bucky’s suddenly and uncomfortably lifted onto some soldier’s shoulders. But Stevie only glances at her for a moment, smiling a smile too small for a face that’s gone larger, and then she goes away.

And she keeps going away. 

\---

Bucky learns how to fire more guns.

She goes through an accelerated turn of what’s essentially basic training, and then some, because Stevie wants her by her side, and that’s where she’s meant to be. And she’s good at it. Crack shot. Not much of a doll anymore. 

It gets them more whispers. Captain America being a dame is one thing, that was an honest mistake. But her second in command is a gal too, and there’s whispers that Stephanie Rogers is _making time_ for another lady on the side. What is this country coming to, who do these women think they are-

To which Bucky has the grace to respond _Captain fuckin’ America, pal_ , and Stevie chuckles and downs her beer. 

But that’s Stevie. And Bucky may be a Howling Commando or whatever the hell they’re called, six crazy fools with guns and not much to lose, but as for who she thinks she is- it’s not much of anything. 

She’s staying by Stevie’s side. She’s finishing the fights Stevie starts. That’s who she is.

\---

Stevie’s twisting her hands together. They’re bigger now but still elegant, calloused like they’ve always been. Artist’s hands. Buck’s always thought so. 

“They don’t like me,” she mutters. “And it’s not just because I’m a girl. Not that most of ‘em like Peggy, still, either.”

Here’s the thing about Peggy. She’s probably the most beautiful woman Buck’s ever seen, apart from Stevie, but she’s not jealous of her. For that, anyway. Bucky’s eyes are good when it comes to pretty girls, not green. 

It’s just the way Stevie’s voice lilts on the _Peg_ of her name, soft like she’s finishing a prayer or something, that drives Bucky absolutely crazy. 

“ ‘course they like you,” she says, instead. “Gorgeous girl who could deadlift a pair of ‘em straight off if she wanted to, what’s not to like?”

Stevie gives her a look like she’s answered her own question, which Bucky guesses is true. She goes back to her needle. Stevie goes back to her hands. 

“Here’s the thing, Buck,” Stevie says. “I don’t care if they like me. If I did, then I’d still be their pinup girl.” Bucky’s about to say that she can’t _believe_ she was on a cot freezing her pert ass off while Stevie was off being a pinup girl, of all things, is there no justice in this world, but Stevie keeps going. “But I need them to like me enough to listen to me.”

It fuckin’ breaks Bucky’s heart, this, that Stevie is healthy now, and strong, and has what she wants, and that the inch-long crease in her forehead just above her nose still won’t go away. “Stevie,” she says, “your voice is the same as it ever was. And now it has a big ole body to match. Anyone who doesn’t listen to it is lacking in some serious common sense.”

That earns her a nod, but the crease is still there. Stevie’s still frowning at her hands. “Could you do something for me, Buck?” she says. “Could you not call me Stevie when we’re around the guys? They’ll just be stupid about it.”

Bucky’s mouth goes a little dry, but that’s not here or there or anywhere. “Got it,” she says. “Copping an attitude on me now that you can chuck me cross the room, Rogers, I see how it is. Coupla more months and you’ll be through with me.”

And Stevie laughs, and claps her on the back and says, “never,” and her shoulderblade stings in a handprint shape. She doesn’t bother laughing along. 

\---

They’re on a train car in some frozen part of the world, and Bucky’s going to die here. 

It’s a small thing, but she’s held Stevie’s shield now. It’s heavier than the girl who wields it ever was, before she got big. It’s heavier than anything. Bucky’s glad she’s not the one who has to hold it. All it did was send her out here, into the winter. 

Now all she’s holding is this damn rail, and it’s light, thin slick metal, and she can barely manage that. It’s a good thing she’s not the one with the shield.

“Bucky!” Stevie’s yelling. It’s the fear in her voice that’s already clinched it, that she’s doomed. “Hold on!”

She edges out onto her own rail. Her hair’s come loose, and is flapping rapidly around her face in the wind. She looks like an angel. Bucky’s gonna die here. 

“Give me your hand!” or maybe she’s imagining that, just because it’s what she always wants Stevie to say to her. She’s always wanted Stevie to be the first one, between them, to reach out, because between them Stevie’s always been braver. That’s always been the way. 

What’s Stevie gonna do if Buck isn’t around to end the fights she starts?

Stevie reaches for her. Bucky lets go of the rail, and reaches back.

And falls. 

That was always going to be the way.

She screams when she does, and it’s such a waste, because she could’ve used that lung space to _say_ something to Stevie, for once. After she stops yelling but before she hits the ground, she wishes she wouldn’t’ve died with so many regrets.

Days or hours later, she wakes up to white, and takes her wish back. 

\---

Bucky had liked beer, because it was what the boys drank, it was what she could get her hands on. And whiskey, because she got praise for drinking a lot of it and holding it all back with nothing but red cheeks and a big smile. And because she said it made her feel like a dragon, fire in her stomach, the one outside Princess Stevie’s tower, protecting her. 

She’d pass some along if she could get it, sometimes, saying it would make Stevie feel warm. Sometimes she’d filch red wine in flasks for her too, because she’d heard that it was good for health. 

Stevie drinks, and drinks, and drinks. 

\---

Captain Stephanie Rogers crashes a plane into the Arctic to save the world, and freezes over, thinking of Bucky under all that ice.

Agent Carter is offered a handsome, handsome sum to negate any rumors that Captain America was her liaison, or that she exhibited any homosexual tendencies. It is refused in a manner described as ‘less than elegant.’ She creates SHIELD instead. She creates the memory of a hero that a nation can fall back on.

Bucky Barnes becomes a holographic tomb in the Smithsonian, a ten-second video of a girl laughing on repeat, forever.

The Winter Soldier sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> This is by far the most self indulgent thing I've ever written. Thanks to Amy for beta'ing!


End file.
